J. Russell Reaver

ONLY IN FLORIDA - Literary Snapshot

August 1, 1993

Florida Folktales (University of Florida Press, 1987) is a collection of Sunshine State stories compiled by folk culture expert J. Russell Reaver. The book includes a selection of urban folk tales including this one, which Reaver heard told in St. Petersburg:

A story circulated during the 1970s at parties, coffee klatches and civic club dinners about an unfortunate cat; it appeared in several spots, but its favorite seemed to be the Central Plaza parking lot. A woman ran over the cat while trying to park her car. She put the dead cat into a shopping bag and left the bag on the top of her car while she went to call the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Another woman came along, saw the shopping bag and lifted it off the car top. Hurrying into Wolfies Restaurant, she ordered a cup of coffee. Then she took a peek inside the bag to examine her loot.

Shrieking, the woman fainted at the sight of the dead cat. As the woman was being carried out on a stretcher, the waitress noticed the abandoned shopping bag, ran out and placed the closed bag on top of the womans body so that she would find it as soon as she was revived. . .